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Press Release: July 8, 2015

O'Reilly Media Announces Next:Economy

A New Executive Summit on the Future of Work

SEBASTOPOL, CA, July 8, 2015—A new event from O'Reilly Media, Next: Economy: What's the Future of Work?, will be held November 12–13, 2015, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, CA.

Next:Economy: What's the Future of Work? will be a focused, high-level conversation, curated by O'Reilly Media Founder & CEO Tim O'Reilly, about the deep ways in which the digitalization of everything is transforming how we do business, how we work, and how we live. The event will address on-the-edge-of-mainstream trends and forces that offer both significant opportunities and challenges for businesses.

"Every industry and every organization will have to transform itself in the next few years, in multiple ways, or fade away," said O'Reilly. "Digital technology, culture, and business models now pervade every industry sector: robotics, big data, and AI redefine or eliminate jobs; and networks of on-demand workers challenge the industrial model of company organization. Our goal is to bring together the leading minds across multiple industries to determine how this 'next economy' works and what opportunities it offers."

Speakers include Laszlo Bock (SVP People Operations, Google), Leah Busque (Founder & CEO, TaskRabbit), Logan Green (Co-founder & CEO, Lyft), Jeff Immelt (Chairman & CEO, GE), Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft), Reid Hoffman (Co-founder & Executive Chairman, LinkedIn, and Partner, Greylock), Sebastian Thrun (Founder & CEO, Udacity), and Yancey Strickler (Co-founder & CEO, Kickstarter). The event features a rich mix of speakers, from entrepreneurs who are leading the transformation of the economy to business and technology leaders who are feeling the impact of this disruption, plus policymakers, alpha geeks, and deep thinkers.

Next:Economy will be co-hosted by renowned technology journalist Steven Levy. Steven is the editor-in-chief of Backchannel, the technology hub on Medium; former tech columnist for Wired and Newsweek; and author of seven acclaimed books on Silicon Valley companies, trends, and products, including the New York Times bestseller In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives.

Just about everyone's asking WTF? ("What's the future?"):

  • WTF? In San Francisco, Uber has 3x the revenue of the entire traditional taxi and limousine industry
  • WTF? Without owning a single room, Airbnb has more rooms on offer than some of the largest hotel groups in the world. Airbnb has 800 employees, while Hilton has 152,000.
  • WTF? Angel syndicates and Kickstarters now deploy amounts of capital that once required top-tier investment firms.
  • WTF? What happens to all those Uber and Lyft drivers when the cars start driving themselves?
  • WTF? AIs are advising doctors on the best treatments, writing sports and financial news, and telling us all, in real time, the fastest way to get to work. They are also telling human workers when to show up and when to go home based on real-time measurement of demand. The algorithm is the new shift boss.
  • WTF? A fabled union organizer gives up on collective bargaining and instead teams up with a successful high tech entrepreneur and investor to go straight to the people with a $15 minimum wage initiative.

What do on-demand businesses, AI, and the $15 minimum wage movement have in common? They are telling us, loud and clear, that we're in for massive changes in work, business, and the economy.

These changes are the focus of Next:Economy. This two-day forum, the latest in the O'Reilly Radar Summit series, is an invitation-only event, similar in style to O'Reilly's groundbreaking Web 2.0 Summit, which provided clarity and focus to the transformation of Silicon Valley after the dotcom bust.

What's the Future? No one has a crystal ball, but the goal of Next:Economy is to shed light on the transformation in the nature of work now being driven by algorithms, big data, robotics, and the on-demand economy.

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Byron Auguste, Managing Director, Opportunity@Work
  • Zoe Baird, CEO and President, Markle Foundation
  • Laszlo Bock, SVP People Operations, Google
  • Kimberly Bryant, Founder, Black Girls Code
  • Leah Busque, Founder, TaskRabbit
  • Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder, Slack
  • Limor Fried, Founder, Adafruit Industries
  • Logan Green, Co-founder and CEO, Lyft
  • Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE
  • Nick Hanauer, Co-founder & Partner, Second Avenue Partners
  • Reid Hoffman, Co-founder & Executive Chairman, LinkedIn, and Partner, Greylock Partners
  • Esther Kaplan, Editor, The Investigative Fund
  • James Manyika, Director, McKinsey Global Institute
  • John Markoff, New York Times
  • Brian Mullins, Founder & CEO, Daqri
  • Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
  • David Rolf, President, SEIU 775
  • Simon Rothman, Partner, Greylock Partners
  • Liz Shuler, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
  • Anne-Marie Slaughter, President & CEO, New America
  • Gary Swart, Venture Partner, Polaris Venture Partners
  • Yancey Strickler, Co-founder & CEO, Kickstarter
  • Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress
  • Dan Teran, Co-founder, Managed by Q
  • Sebastian Thrun, Founder & CEO, Udacity
  • Ev Williams, CEO, Medium

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its Safari learning platform, books, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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